iPad goes under the gauntlet at universities this fall

A number of institutions of higher education have programs in place to test …

The iPad is about to have its academic chops put to the test this fall in a number of programs around the country. Colleges and universities are looking to adopt the iPad as a collaborative tool, a standardized mobile device to integrate into curriculums, and, in some cases, even a cost-saving device.

Oklahoma State University plans to begin a pilot iPad program this fall, with students in certain courses offered by the School of Media and Strategic Communications and the Spears School of Business receiving iPads to use with those courses. The program will be used to determine how effective iPads can be as tools to enhance learning as well as how such mobile devices can be integrated into the workplace.

"This limited pilot will be focused on fields of study where we believe we can best determine the higher education value of the iPad," Bill Handy, visiting assistant professor in OSU's School of Media and Strategic Communications, told Macsimum News. "We will evaluate the academic enhancement to the courses, how the iPad and its specific apps and web-based tools can be integrated in this capacity, and perhaps most importantly, how the integration of these mobile tools can expand the tactical abilities of students as they enter the workforce."

Though an iPad starts at $499 and can cost as much as $829 for the top-end model, there is potential for cost savings, as well. The university has already identified one class where the textbook in ePub format costs $100 less than the dead-tree version. With a typical class load of five courses, it could be possible to completely offset the cost of a device like an iPad in textbook savings alone. (At least, this is true if you're comparing the iPad against a stack of brand new textbooks; the savings may disappear if used books are brought into the comparison.)

The Illinois Institute of Technology has even more ambitious plans to integrate iPads into academics. A technology initiative will give all incoming freshman undergraduates—about 550 students—an iPad to use as a technological enhancement to the curriculum. Because all freshman are required to take several introductory courses, such as "Introduction to the Professions," software, e-texts, and other resources will be uniform for those courses.

"We can ensure everyone has the same hardware and software, and it makes it easier to integrate into the curriculum," Evan Venie, associate director of media relations for IIT, told Ars. "But we also want to open it up to other faculty that want to integrate iPad support into their courses—most of the faculty are very interested in leveraging the potential the iPad offers in the academic environment."

The Kindle already underwent similar pilot testing at seven universities last fall, as many schools are interested in replacing textbooks and mounds of printouts of journal articles and other assigned readings with eReaders. Amazon provided Kindle DXs to Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Pace University, Princeton University, Reed College, the University of Washington, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia for the evaluation program.

Though students were very receptive to participating in the tests, both faculty and students found numerous technological hurdles that in the end outweighed the potential benefits. Students at Reed College complained of the slow refresh rate of e-Ink displays, problematic input, inability to load PDFs over the network, and inability to view more than one text at a time as major sticking points. Reed faculty found converting documents to work well on the Kindle to be particularly difficult in most cases.

Students participating in the test at Darden School of Business, while loving the Kindle for personal reading, overwhelmingly felt the Kindle didn't pass muster in its current state for academic use—about 4 out of 5 would not recommend a Kindle DX to incoming MBA students. The test also faced a lawsuit from the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind over the Kindle's lack of accessibility features, though Amazon has pledged to address that shortcoming sometime this year.

Despite the disappointing results of the tests with the Kindle DX, schools have high hopes for the iPad. OSU and IIT aren't alone in exploring ways to use an iPad to enhance education—other programs around the country include:

Seton Hill University's "An iPad for Everyone" is part of the university's Griffin Technology Advantage Program. Announced just as the first iPads were beginning to ship, the program will put an iPad in the hands of every full-time student starting this fall.

Students at George Fox University, which has given a MacBook to incoming freshman for several years, will now offer students a choice between a MacBook or an iPad. "With this, we're basically asking students 'What computing system will work best for you?'" the university's chief information officer, Grag Smith, said at the time the program was announced.

North Carolina State University Libraries announced this past spring that it acquired 30 iPads to offer students and faculty for four-hour loans as part of the school's Technology Lending Service. That service offers a variety of devices for loan to students, including laptops, digital cameras, eBook readers, graphing calculators, and more. In addition to browsing the web and "evaluating whether this latest platform is something you want to invest in for the future," the iPads can be used to read some of the 9,000 eBooks NC State recently acquired.

Students in a master's course in global health research at Duke University's Global Health Institute will be given iPads to use for field work. "Our primary goal is to equip our students with a toolset that allows them to make the most of their time in the field," said Associate Professor of Sociology Jen'nan Read, who will be teaching the class. The students will have models with 3G networking as well as pre-installed apps for collecting data, importing media files, and graphing results.

The University of Maryland will be giving 75 honors students enrolled in the Digital Cultures and Creativity "living and learning program" an iPad this fall. Students will use the iPads for pulling down multimedia content related to their coursework, and will also be developing their own apps for the device. The iPad program is part of a larger Mobility Initiative designed to integrate mobile devices into the curriculum at UM.

Reed College will repeat an experiment that tested student preference of textbooks loaded on a Kindle versus traditional paper textbooks this fall, this time using iPads. Students in the previous experiment preferred the dead-tree edition to using a Kindle DX, despite the obvious advantage of not hauling heavy books all over campus. Expectations are that the iPad will fare better with students than the Kindle did. "If I were to predict, I would say that the results are going to be dramatically different and much better," Martin D. Ringle, chief technology officer at Reed College, told The Chronicle of Higher Education, "and they're going to point the way to what role this technology is going to play in higher education."

The iPad can certainly address the speed and input issues that students complained about, and offers accessibility features for vision-impaired users. However, the device may suffer from similar problems with loading documents over the air and viewing more than one text at a time. But by combining its speed with the multitasking capabilities that will come in a fall update to iOS 4, the iPad may still prove to be a workable solution. If it works as well as expected, carrying an iPad would sure beat lugging 40lbs of books and a laptop all over campus.

69 Reader Comments

The iPad is a pretty awesome consumption device. It's great for reading, playing games on, and scanning PDF files. I use it often instead of sheets of paper now when cross-referencing results. Drag a data file into Dropbox, load it on iPad, compare with whatever I'm writing.

I do think an iPad is much more useful than an eInk device as far as Univeresity work goes, but I can't help but to think that this is not really a device that creates tangible benefits for a student.

So, how would they believe that having a textbook on an iPad would be any better than having it on a Kindle? If Princeton has determined that a Kindle is not appropriate for academic usage (as far as text and such) how would others justify the iPad as otherwise? I haven't seen any reader apps that have better markup utility than the Kindle. . .

I realize there are other apps - but the cost of textbooks was used to justify the high price of the iPad. . .

I know that the iPad could be hugely useful in applications where GIS data could be gathered - that would be very nice. However, a netbook with GPS would do the same job for a lot less.

My yearly requirements email to incoming and returning students said that the iPad is not acceptable as their main computer (duh! LOL) but makes a very nice accessory computer, just like a netbook. . .

While a $100 discount on a book may not be comparable to just buying it used, carrying a small pack with a couple of notebooks and an iPad containing all your books rather than hauling the dead load of *my* college days (sniff) would be more than worth it.

Of course, with everything else the iPad does, I would never get anything done..

What's the advantage of an iPad over a convertible tablet? A convertible tablet is brilliant for taking notes on (see also: OneNote), and has a keyboard that you can write papers, develop code, etc. on?

You still need two devices.

If one has a special screen for non-fatiguing reading (i.e. Kindle), that's one thing. But if you're going to go back to an LCD anyway, you might as well get a device that you can actually do your schoolwork on.

While a $100 discount on a book may not be comparable to just buying it used, carrying a small pack with a couple of notebooks and an iPad containing all your books rather than hauling the dead load of *my* college days (sniff) would be more than worth it.

Of course, with everything else the iPad does, I would never get anything done..

The interesting thing to notice is that these programs have unique needs and they are looking at the Ipad to fufill them. Its not a case of Every student gets an Ipad regardless of major. I really dont see the value in one other than shrinking the weight of text books. At the end of the day the material still has to get from blackboard to brain. I dont see that happening via Ipad. Especially since many university budgets are being cut, and to accommodate the Ipad would mean spending resources retooling curriculum to utilize it.

Call me old fashion, but nothing beats pencil and paper. But then again college now is less about learning and more about a social right of passage. But thats a rant for another time.

Hmm... I'm reminded of my seventh grade math class when I wrote out, longhand, with pencil and notebook paper, something intended to be a program to play Mastermind (only as the code maker) in Applesoft BASIC. My teacher was impressed (or amused; hard to tell when you're 12), but she had no idea if it would work. We may never know... had only two of the ][s in the school and they were only teaching PASCAL on them.

While a $100 discount on a book may not be comparable to just buying it used, carrying a small pack with a couple of notebooks and an iPad containing all your books rather than hauling the dead load of *my* college days (sniff) would be more than worth it.

Of course, with everything else the iPad does, I would never get anything done..

Hauling dead weight builds character! Or spinal injury...

It builds the kind of character you find lurking around church bell towers in France..

Hmm... I'm reminded of my seventh grade math class when I wrote out, longhand, with pencil and notebook paper, something intended to be a program to play Mastermind (only as the code maker) in Applesoft BASIC. My teacher was impressed (or amused; hard to tell when you're 12), but she had no idea if it would work. We may never know... had only two of the ][s in the school and they were only teaching PASCAL on them.

A computer would surely have beat pencil and paper to find out :-)

That would make pavement better than pencil and paper—because it’s much better to build a car and test it on the road than to *just* design it on paper.

So, how would they believe that having a textbook on an iPad would be any better than having it on a Kindle? If Princeton has determined that a Kindle is not appropriate for academic usage (as far as text and such) how would others justify the iPad as otherwise? I haven't seen any reader apps that have better markup utility than the Kindle. . .

Yeah, the iPad is better for textbooks than a Kindle. This is due to the refresh rate. Due to the nature of a textbook you spend a lot of time browsing and skimming. Looking at Figure 2, checking back at the end of the book for the answer key to your math problems, referring to Page 43 so you can answer the questions at the back of Chapter 6, cross-referencing the results mentioned by Skinner, et al. in your text with modern research.

Doing that kind of fast paging isn't very comfortable with eInk, since scrolling around pages takes forever.

Yeah, the iPad is better for textbooks than a Kindle. This is due to the refresh rate. Due to the nature of a textbook you spend a lot of time browsing and skimming. Looking at Figure 2, checking back at the end of the book for the answer key to your math problems, referring to Page 43 so you can answer the questions at the back of Chapter 6, cross-referencing the results mentioned by Skinner, et al. in your text with modern research.

Doing that kind of fast paging isn't very comfortable with eInk, since scrolling around pages takes forever.

But how does iPad do this any better? On a real book you can fold the page, use a post it, or whatever, and get to the back of the book in one second or less. Can an iPad do it in one second?

My second concern is with illustrations/pictures. The resolution of the ipad screen is low. If it had a "retina display" instead of 1024x768 I'd buy into the screen is as good as paper concept, but this isn't the case. Will ebooks on ipad be as good?

Putting all your books on one device would seriously rock though. It makes being a student on the go much easier, if the device is up to it.

I don't really get the complaints about resolution on an iPad (although I also don't get why apple didn't give iPad their best, seeing as Retina was clearly in concurrent development). At the distance from the eyes one normally holds the iPad, it looks absolutely great. Remember people, it's 1024x768... many people STILL have their desktop on this resolution! -- sent from myPad

The iPad needs a host to tether with for syncing and so on - how is that going to be handled?

Hear! Hear! That's *exactly* what I was thinking when I saw this little goodie in the article:

Quote:

George Fox University, which has given a MacBook to incoming freshman for several years, will now offer students a choice between a MacBook or an iPad. "With this, we're basically asking students 'What computing system will work best for you?'"

I've usually made the distinction by calling the iPad a "computing appliance" rather than a "computer". When AAPL comes out with one that doesn't want to "call home" right out of the box, it might be a box more worthy of a school. As is, the school might consider: expensive box, soon to be replaced by a better one (no doubt), easily damaged by student wear and tear (no doubt), so: ROI?

But how does iPad do this any better? On a real book you can fold the page, use a post it, or whatever, and get to the back of the book in one second or less. Can an iPad do it in one second?

My second concern is with illustrations/pictures. The resolution of the ipad screen is low. If it had a "retina display" instead of 1024x768 I'd buy into the screen is as good as paper concept, but this isn't the case. Will ebooks on ipad be as good?

Putting all your books on one device would seriously rock though. It makes being a student on the go much easier, if the device is up to it.

I do not have an iPad, however on the iBooks app in the iPhone you can just search for the text, skim pages via the index or the thumbnail view, put a marker to the page you want to have accessible, make notes, and if the book is in ePub you can also put yellow marker on the text to highlight it and study it.

The resolution i don't see as an issue because you can always zoom in.

And even if you are not satisfied with the apple solution, there are a TON of readers for the iPad... including the kindle one.

It would be great actually if the iPad could be a good fit for education, but I don't really see it happening. There are some niche products with two screens, or pen input, that might fit better in some ways, but lack the support that Apple can provide. Virtual keyboards are unlikely to be sufficient for significant note-taking; in fact, video or at least audio recording would be helpful in plenty of classes. In fact, you could remove the physical classroom for a lot of classes that are taught and use a full computer instead. Video recordings, virtual whiteboards, Skype sessions: lots of existing technology is more useful than an iPad would be if universities weren't trying to preserve the status quo. If you didn't have an expensive physical location to support, only classes needing hands on would really need an actual building to meet in (and maybe not all of those, depending on the expense of the materials). Education is one field where too many people are locked into the old way of doing things, and aren't prepared to leverage the true power of the internet, especially with the social status associated with college attendance.

It would be a scary world in some sense where a lot of teachers were suddenly redundant, though, with the best interactive lectures available worldwide. Oh, did I veer massively off-topic? Oops.In short, I think they'll find the iPad is only slightly more useful in most academic situations than a Kindle. Color and refresh speed and easier interface will all be improvements; any additional benefit will probably rely on some custom software, and not anything inherent in the iPad.

I sure would lighten the weight for the student, but is it any cheaper.... or should I say how much more expensive is it?

a 16GB wifi iPad is $499. So far I'm $580 for my books, and I still have one more class I'm waiting for a hold to clear on. If the ebook version was 50% then the iPad would have paid for itself in less than 3 semesters.(and yes, I could have saved about $200 buying used, but then no guarantee that they'll come with the CD)I don't know how much they weigh, but the stack of 5 books is almost as tall as a Bluray case (sorry no ruler)

iPad vs Kindle: how many science articles/pages of science textbooks do not have color illustrations?

at this time the iPad may be the best thing for reading science pdfs (note: you can zoom in on the figures which you can't do with paper) and can carry thousands around which I do (which you can't do with paper) as well as search, etc etc

Apple will be at this university tomorrow to chat about iPad deployment, uses etc; could be amusing

I sure would lighten the weight for the student, but is it any cheaper.... or should I say how much more expensive is it?

Until a few weeks ago, the Kindle DX was more or less the same price.

Quote:

Also consider the fact that iPad is a lock-in product...

"Lock in" how? Apps? Because most platforms are like that. DRM? Again, most mobile platforms have their own DRM for non-music, and iTunes no longer sells DRM music.

Quote:

...how much productivity can it actually generate?

Quite a bit actually. New apps enable new productivity all the time, but I've used my iPad to write Ars posts before, for instance.

Quote:

What happens when it is dropped and broken in between lectures/tuitions?

This will be a concern for any technology device put into use the way iPads are. At least if you bust an iPad, you can get a new one and sync all your files from you computer/MobileMe/recent back up.

Quote:

Are we all seriously ready to use a non-productivity base computer for our school work? I think not.

The "non-productivity" description just isn't true, and yes, I believe we are on the cusp of devices like the iPad replacing standard desktops for academic and many other uses. iPad1,1/iOS 3.2 isn't there yet, but it's on the right path.

"Lock in" how? Apps? Because most platforms are like that. DRM? Again, most mobile platforms have their own DRM for non-music, and iTunes no longer sells DRM music.

I wouldn't say lock-in, but it is reported as somewhat locked down, limiting what the user and the applications can do, isn't it?

foresmac108 wrote:

darkmax wrote:

Quote:

...how much productivity can it actually generate?

Quite a bit actually. New apps enable new productivity all the time, but I've used my iPad to write Ars posts before, for instance.

While I do think that its popularity may lead to some interesting new apps, or at least interfaces that are more friendly for people other than computer geeks, was writing an Ars post in any way an improvement over the notebook computer experience, rather than inferior?

I love how the iPad frees people from carrying around books, but a laptop doesn't (see last paragraph of the article).I wish my laptop could read e-books. Hmm...

And foresmac, what sort of posts have you written on your iPad? Short ones, or long articles like the Droid review (as a general example of something more substantial).Did you write this post of your iPad?

"yes, I believe we are on the cusp of devices like the iPad replacing standard desktops for academic and many other uses. iPad1,1/iOS 3.2 isn't there yet, but it's on the right path."

This is, if it happens on any scale with the iPad, a disaster for society. The last thing we need is a reading device which will only allow you to buy books and other media from one corporation's source. We particularly do not need this in the education sector.

What we need, if we need ebooks, is the present printed book model. Go to the store of your choice, buy the book of your choice, buy it used, lend it, borrow it from a library, resell it, and read it wherever you want - with or without your glasses, in your armchair, on the beach, in the bath.

Not, go to the corporation store, choose from what they have made available, buy it using the software they support, and then read it on and only on the device they supply.

There is no place in the education sector for corporations one of whose main aims is the restriction of intellectual freedom.

a 16GB wifi iPad is $499. So far I'm $580 for my books, and I still have one more class I'm waiting for a hold to clear on. If the ebook version was 50% then the iPad would have paid for itself in less than 3 semesters.

Are you in some kind of fantasy land? 50%? Most of them are 80-90%, and you can't sell them back. eBooks for textbooks are a publisher's wet dream. You get to sell a "discounted" product that eliminates the used market, and even better, expires so that the user can't read it anymore. I've already had this with two books in different classes. For one, access was online only through "FlashPaper", so if you weren't connected to the Internet, you couldn't read. The other, access required Oracle IRM Desktop Sealer, which is some kind of wrapper around a PDF that makes it such that you can't print, copy, etc and it checks in every so often so that it knows when to disable your book.

So, you pay 80% of new, get no money for selling it back, and don't even get to keep the book. How in the hell have you benefited from this? I can buy used on Amazon or Half.com for ~50% of new, sell it on there for ~45-50% of new, and only be out the commission and shipping.

While a $100 discount on a book may not be comparable to just buying it used, carrying a small pack with a couple of notebooks and an iPad containing all your books rather than hauling the dead load of *my* college days (sniff) would be more than worth it.

Of course, with everything else the iPad does, I would never get anything done..

Hauling dead weight builds character! Or spinal injury...

Or gives students exercise that's hard to find time to do otherwise (well... depends on what major you are following, I guess).

The iPad alone would have been nice in school to lighten the book carrying load but would never have been sufficient for what we did. You still need a more general purpose computer to go along with it to actually do the work you need to do. For some majors, I'm sure the iPad alone would be sufficient, though.

Back when I was in school we had lots less choice in form factor but today, I'd go for a smallish (but capable) laptop to carry around and have a large monitor and docking station in my room.

a 16GB wifi iPad is $499. So far I'm $580 for my books, and I still have one more class I'm waiting for a hold to clear on. If the ebook version was 50% then the iPad would have paid for itself in less than 3 semesters.

Are you in some kind of fantasy land? 50%? Most of them are 80-90%, and you can't sell them back. eBooks for textbooks are a publisher's wet dream.